The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood – #20booksofsummer

This is my 5th book in th #20booksofsummer reading challenge hosted by Cathy at 746Books.

Blurb:
I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.

Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford her assigned name, Offred, means of Fred . She has only one function: to breed. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men upon which her future hangs.

My thoughts:
This is one of the books that I knew I had to read, and when I opened it I had no idea that it was originally published in 1985. What fascinates me about this is that nearly 40 years later it is still extremely relevant in how women are perceived. Especially with Trump in office.

It took some time for me to start getting into the book because it is a style of writting that I’m not used to. There were a lot of time frame jumps, and because it’s set in such a strange period I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it, and therefore I ended up putting it down and reading The Hate U Give. But I picked it up again pretty quickly and I got used to the writing style.

I’m so glad that I did because it was a really good story.
I found the relationship between Offred and the Commander to be interesting. I don’t want to go into too much detail here because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone thta hasn’t read it but let’s just say, it’s interesting and the Commander definitely has some warped ideas.

I would have loved if the book had a clearer ending, but then again I understand why there wasn’t a clear ending and I thought that was extremely clever! (Again I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t yet read it).

I also really enjoyed how Offred developed and so to did her memories. It seems as though as she is growing more frustrated with what is happening, the more she looks back on what her life was like before with more skeptisism.

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